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July 17, 2009

Commentary: Gallo

There's a draft of a post that's been sitting here for months now, and in light of the Claire Denis films I've been writing about, it seemed a good time to finally put it to bed. It's dated March 7th, which if I recall correctly would have found me in Dallas, sleeping at a friend's office and working like mad to put the finishing touches on St. Nick. Around that time, some kind soul sent me the commentary track to The Brown Bunny, pulled from the Japanese DVD release. From that post:

And then here's a passage that sort of put in words, old words but accurate ones, just how I've been feeling lately:

What, what exactly do I get out of making these films? I mean, I don't make any money, I give up three years of my life on each one, I make a lot of enemies because I'm bossy and pushy and crotchety, and I get old and crabby and my back and my neck and everything hurts now, and I didn't go on any dates. What do I get, this weird satisfaction that I was able to put something in the world that now exists that most people don't like anyway? I don't know, this is just a sick in the head move. But at the time it seemed like the most important thing.

A few weeks prior to that, I'd taken part in an e-mail interview about St. Nick. The faithful correspondent asked me what my all time favorite film was, and I'd responded with something along the lines of "right now, The Brown Bunny seems like a pretty good answer." And sure enough, it still does. And I never go on any dates, either.

Posted by David Lowery at July 17, 2009 12:27 PM